“We’re finally proud to be Americans.”
Welcome to the party. Glad you’re here.
I normally don’t comment on the goings-on in my social networking world, but on this I must: when Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States, sentences began popping up all over Facebook that said things like “So-and-so is finally proud to be American.”
Wrong. While it is perfectly okay to say that electing the first black President of a country that spent the first half of its existence besieged by racism and slavery makes one proud of America, it is a pathetic worldview indeed which convinces one that yesterday was the first day he or she was proud to be an American.
Just for the record, though I will debate you, it is forever your right to say that you are, in fact, not proud to be an American. Those people aren’t who I’m speaking to in this instance.
Those who say they are “finally” proud to be Americans are cultural windsocks ignorant of any larger issues beyond the issue of race. Or hope and change, whatever that may mean in the coming months.
America as a country has done some pretty despicable things, to its own people and to other countries. Over the two and a half centuries we have enjoyed sovereignty, we have acted boorishly in defense of our own interests at the expense of other countries’ economies, peoples, and ecosystems. Therefore, it is foolish and foolhardy, and ultimately insensitive and cruel, to glibly pronounce that the election of one man who does not have the power to right all these bloody wrongs has made you “proud to be an American.”
If you were not proud before, there is no way that Barack Obama can ever possibly wipe out all the evils, and wipe clean all the death and destruction visited upon human beings by America. To believe otherwise is to strip these tragedies of their relevance and importance, and to strip those who still grieve of their right to do so.
Then again, if the only thing that was keeping you from loving the red, white and blue was a man by the name of George W. Bush, if your visceral hatred for his person was so intense that you could not appreciate one acre of this fruited plain otherwise; here is a website for you.
On the other hand, if you are someone who genuinely loves America, and not just Barack Obama, and not just because of Barack Obama, you’re probably wondering the same thing I am: How can one man, one politician, one person, possibly eclipse the genius of our Declaration of Independence, and our Constitution and present version of the Bill of Rights? How can one man serve to inspire the same amount as the successful, free government system of the United States has inspired the rest of the world?
Do you think the millions of immigrants to our shores would have come not because of our system, but because of our leaders, for one man? Do you think your siblings, parents, grandparents, and more would have fought and died to defend Barack Obama, or to defend liberty? Then why are you proud to be an American now, instead of every time you think about the stand-up people which have produced an election that has righted a historic wrong for all the world to see? There is much wrong with America, but I can think of no other country so obsessed with bettering itself and righting its wrongs and fixing its failures and extending a helping hand to countries in need than these United States. That spirit of liberty and goodness and progress in the face of comfort and complacency (and how much more comfortable would it have been to elect another old white man, or John Edwards, or Hillary Clinton) is why I love America. Her ideals and Constitutional codicils have conducted human nature in the best way that has yet been observed in history. She has wisdom, she has ingenuity, she has liberty, and most of all, she has an exceptionally well-designed system and well-equipped defenders to keep us all safely in the pursuit of happiness. America’s not perfect, but her people, ensconced in a system designed just for this purpose, have much that has yet to be done, and even more to be proud of.
The greatness of this country extends far beyond the reach of any one person, even Barack Obama.
So, I’m glad that some of you liberals are finally proud to be Americans. Welcome to the party; hope you learn a thing or two while you’re here.
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Feed for The Spectrum
While I understand the sentiment behind “We’re finally proud to be Americans,” it is a shame that people choose to express it by using such a vulgar phrase.
Some might not have been proud to be Americans until the election of Barack Obama; this seems to me, as it does to you, ignorant. However, I also think few people really feel this way. It seems more likely that, rather than feeling proud to be American for the first time, people feel as though the election of Barack Obama validates them as citizens fully recognized as equal. Of course, I’m invoking race, but I think it’s appropriate. My guess is that “finally proud to be American” is a poor way of saying “I finally feel that America recognizes me as one of hers.”
I might be giving people too much credit. Regardless, it’s ironic that Barack Obama’s fans should so poorly express themselves, for even you will admit that he is a strong believer in the power of words.